


Matt <3 Mars

by tendency



Category: Actor RPF, The Martian (2015) RPF, Thor Ragnarok (2017)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Extra Treat, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29396823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendency/pseuds/tendency
Summary: More than a year afterThe Martian, Matt Damon is still a little bit obsessed with Mars. And space. And anything that will give him a chance to get back there. (Okay, so he's actually a lot obsessed.)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 17
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Matt <3 Mars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



Jessica doesn't answer her phone until the fourth ring. "It's been more than a year, Matt, get over it," she says in lieu of hello.

This is an improvement over Matt's attempts to contact Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara, neither of whom picked up the last five times he called. They hadn't called back either, nor acknowledged his impassioned voicemails in any way. (Okay, he might have gone on a bit of a rant there at the end, but hey, it's Mars. Anyone would get emotional when thinking about the Red Planet, wouldn't they?)

"Don't you miss it?" Matt asks, holding his phone to his ear with one hand and rummaging through his kitchen cabinets with the other.

"I really hope what you mean by _it_ is the enjoyable experience of working together," she says. "We did have some fun scenes together. I could get my agent to send your agent a list of my upcoming projects if you want to try out for any of them, but I have to warn you, they're not sci-fi. And judging from some of the texts I've been getting from some of the rest of our big happy family of Mars astronauts, that's what you're calling about."

"So they _did_ get my messages!" Matt crows. "Yeah, that's what I'm calling about. Mars. Isn't it beautiful? Don't you miss it?" 

He finally decides on cereal, and pours himself a bowl full while he listens to Jessica's reply. "I barely spent any time on the Mars set," she points out. There's the sound of splashing in the background; she might be at the beach or at the pool. He doesn't see any reason to ask; she's obviously not on Mars because there's no water there, so wherever else she is doesn't matter. "And most of that was the storm scene, which was cool but not exactly the best way to judge whether a set is beautiful or not."

"No, not the Mars set. Mars."

"I don't miss those bulky spacesuits either. I'm plenty happy having my next film set on Earth where I can wear a normal costume with no breathing holes."

Matt frowns and takes his cereal into his living room. He sits cross-legged on the couch and looks at the white wall in front of him. It's got some big piece of modern art on it, that his interior designer had told him would make a good investment. If he took it down, that would give him plenty of room to put up a big picture of the surface of Mars. But would it be better to pick one of the images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken from far above the surface, or should he get a closeup sent by _Opportunity_? _Opportunity_ is such a fantastic little rover; its mission was only supposed to last 90 sols but it's been operating for over a decade. It deserves to have its photos blown up big and printed on a wall. Unfortunately, since it has to send all that data somewhere between 34 and 250 million miles through space using 2000s tech, the images probably aren't high enough quality to post on his wall.

Hey, maybe he could hire some of the people who made the sets for _The Martian_ to paint his wall. They did a fantastic job of making it look like Mars. Or maybe they could even paint the whole room!

"Matt? Are you there?"

"Oh, hey Jessica," Matt says, taking a bite of cereal. "Sorry, I got distracted. I just miss it so much, y'know?"

"Look," she says. It's the same tone of voice the others had had right before they said things like _you're too obsessed with Mars these days, I worry about you_ and _you do know it was just a movie, right?_ , and Matt prepares himself to get hung up on. But she doesn't hang up. "There's this weird sci-fi movie project that my agent heard about recently. She passed it on to me because I've told her I always want to at least take a look at that kind of stuff, but I pretty quickly figured out I didn't want any part of it. Actually I'm not entirely convinced it's a movie. I've never heard of the director. It might be a scammer, though if so they're pretty good because I don't trick easily, and neither does my agent."

"So what's the project?" It had better involve space. Lots of sci-fi movies end up all on Earth and just have aliens or robots or whatever. Matt really really wants to go back to Mars, but he'll settle for any planet that's not Earth. He'd even go for an asteroid, or a moon or something.

" _The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard_."

"Loki, like the guy who invaded New York a few years ago? Man, that really screwed up filming for _Promised Land_."

"Yeah, Loki's pretty much the lead character. Anyway, the script seemed pretty boring, and I'm really not sure where the sci-fi element came into it. But the guy my agent talked to was quite insistent that space travel was a big part of it."

"Put me in touch with him," Matt says quickly. "This could be my chance to go back to Mars." Space travel! He doesn't care how small or weird the role is, he'll take any project that involves space travel. It's his only chance to go back to space. (Well, he's also been emailing his state senators to point out how sending an actor to space would be great for public awareness, but so far none of them have emailed him back.)

"Okay," Jessica says. "You _do_ know you weren't actually on Mars, right? I mean, it was a really good set, but it wasn't _that_ good."

"Yeah, of course," Matt says. He still misses it like burning, though.

***

The representative for the Loki project looks a lot like Loki himself did in all those photos from Germany and New York, except without the crazy horned outfit. "Nice to meet you," Matt says, shaking his hand firmly. "I hear you can get me into space."

"Is that what you want?"

"Yeah, I want to go to Mars. Or, I mean, anywhere in the galaxy, but especially Mars. Is your project set on Mars, by any chance?"

"Not exactly. But why limit yourself to this galaxy? That's such a narrow, human perspective."

"I don't really know much about space outside of the Milky Way," Matt has to admit. "I've spent most of my time reading about Mars."

The representative produces a piece of paper and a pen from—well, frankly, Matt's not sure exactly where he got them from. "There are nine galaxies, or realms, or many other names besides depending on who you ask about them." He scribbles some circles on the paper and draws lines between them. "The realms are connected via the world tree, which was known as Yggdrasil in ancient literature."

"This is starting to sound like a mythology lesson," Matt says. "Is your movie mythological or sci-fi?"

"Oh, sci-fi, definitely. But it involves multiple galaxies, as I was just saying. So do you want to travel into another galaxy to act in my show or not?" He holds out his hand for a handshake.

"You haven't told me anything about your show," Matt says. The representative raises an eyebrow at him. "But you can tell me more about it. I'm definitely interested." He clasps the representative's hand.

"Good enough," the representative says. He squeezes Matt's hand, and the world around them swirls into nothingness.

"Where are we?" Matt yells.

"Yggdrasil," he says. "The world tree, like I was just telling you about."

"So..." Matt looks around at the nothing-but-something around him. (Or is it something-but-nothing? Whatever it is, it's hard to put words to. He has no idea what he's looking at, or if he's looking at anything at all.) "Is...is this a set?"

"For a movie? No. We have a stage set up for the play, but that's not till we get back to Asgard."

"You're...you're Loki, aren't you."

There is a shimmer in the darkness, and when the man turns back to him he looks much older, with a wrinkled face and gray beard. "Of course not. I am Odin of Asgard. Loki was my beloved younger son, in whose memory I have commissioned the play you are about to perform."

"You haven't even told me who I'm going to play!"

"Oh, Loki, of course. I wanted to pick the actor for Loki personally. And I heard you wanted to go to space, and you look decently like Loki and you're a good enough actor, so you were a perfect fit."

"Yeah, I wanted to go to space, but specifically I wanted to go to Mars." Matt looks around them. Now that his eyes are adjusting to the darkness, he can see glowing space on every side of him. Are those galaxies? Are any of them the Milky Way, or is he somehow already outside the only galaxy he's ever known? "Um, can we stop at Mars on the way to Asgard?"

"That's already a few billion light-years behind us," says the man who calls himself Odin. "But I can drop you off there on the way back."

"Fantastic!" Matt says. "So all I've got to do is play Loki, and then I can go to Mars?"

Odin nods.

"I'm going to do the best job of playing Loki you've ever seen." Matt grins. He's not entirely sure what he's gotten himself into, but he doesn't particularly care—his fondest dream is close to coming true!


End file.
